Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1906 — LIVING WITHIN ONE'S INCOME. [ARTICLE]

LIVING WITHIN ONE'S INCOME.

Indianapolis Sentinel: For the majority of people, there ia nothing harder to do than to live within the limits of one’s income. The world is full of temptations that coax the dollars from the pocket and, underneath everything, is every man’s inherent vanity and every woman’s inherent vanity that conusels both men and women to spend more than they onght to spend. The young man that takes a wife desires to give her the finest home within bis power—not within his means. The wife may be the daughter of a man of wealth and the young husband may be a man no wealthier than a week’s salary, but, for all of this, the young husband desires to give his wife everything to which she has been accustomed. He does not stop to consider that his newly acquired father-in-law may have spent his life in accumulating the fortnne at bis command and that, manifestly, it is not possible for the young man to have as many dollars ai the old man, On the contrary, the youth casts about for the means whereby what his wife should have if her former place in society is to be maintained can be obtained. And be discovers that it is easy to go into debt. Forthwith he assumes heavy obligations and then and there hangs a millstone about his business career.

Wherever you turn you meet those who have accumulated debts out of all proportion to their income —men and women who are satisfied to live from hand to mouth if they can make a favorable outward appearance and keep out of the bankruptcy court. To keep up with the procession they sink deeper and deeper into the mire. To secure finer apartments, new clothing, seats at the theater, and suppers afterward, they mortgage their future to the modern Shylock into whose net they have fallen, until, no matter how much they may prosper it requires every penny they can procure to meet the 'exorbitant charges for interest upon the money which they have spent to “keep np appearances” There are so many of these persons in the world that young men and women ought to take warning from their fate and thus learn how to avoid such pitfalls. They can see what it costs others to “kebp up appearances,” when actually nobody cares whether they are “kept up” or not, and they can witness the end of all such efforts —the final failure and the scandal of the debtor’s court. From such experiences it should be easy to learu the lession that nothing is cheap if it has to be paid for in the future. If your income prescribes humble fare, stick to your bean and onion soup for the present. You will be all the happier when the day comes in which you can order your champagne and truffles. Moreover, the world will think the better of yon for your abstinence, for you need not imagine that you can fool the world. Everybody knows when your attempt at “keeping up appearances” is a bluff, and society laughs at you quietly in its sleeve. It may condescend to eat your truffles or to occupy your box at the opera, but all the time it knows you are a fool, and when the day of your disgrace dawns it will not hesitate to say “1 told you so.” The trouble is that too little stress is laid upon the dishonesty of debt. Children should be taught that they may as well rob a man at the point of a pistol as to deprive him of his goods when they have no prospect of paying for them, and the quicker the parents and teachers begin to impress this fact upon the minds of the little ones the better it will be for society. Nothing in this world is easier than to get into debt. There are very few things that are harder than to get oat of it.